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Jay Santos > wrote in news:2LYzd.4737$qf5.66
@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net:

Didn't really want to jump into this thread, but this is too ridiculous to
ignore.

> But ethical values are different; they're not
> utilitarian.


There are a good many utilitarian ethicists who would disagree with you. In
fact, utilitarianism is the dominant, though not the only, approach to
moral reasoning, especially in Anglo-American academia.

Furthermore, not only utilitarians, but many ethicists favoring other
approaches, such as deontologists, would adopt some form of the "least
harm" rule. Sometimes doing no harm is not an available option. And
sometimes causing less of one harm may cause more of another. Thus the
rule, "do the least harm, all things considered, that the circumstances and
available choices permit."

> Polluting is not morally wrong, it's just
> something that makes us all worse off than we would be
> if there were no pollution.


Anything that may make anyone worse off or better off is by definition a
moral issue.